Alesis Photon 25

[Adrian Delso]

I've just installed a new Alesis Photon 25. I needed a MIDI keyboard and this one offers good control capability - I was going to 'train' it to run Metro.

I connected it to my USB interface and it powered up immediately. I checked the AMS and there it was. The Test worked. Plink. Plink.

Opened Metro, Track and Graphic Windows, clicked on Synth, selected DLS 1, played a few notes, hit 'Record', recorded a couple of bars, checked all the buttons and knobs on the Photon, then grabbed the joystick and gave it a serious waggle - and the sound cut out.

MIDI was still going in, velocity was being read, etc. but no sound out from playing the keys, nor from playing back the short sequence I'd just recorded.

I loaded up Logic 6 and repeated exactly what I'd just done with Metro. No problem at all.

Reloaded Metro, repeated the exercise, again the sound cut out.

Opened Logic and Metro together, played the keyboard, heard both programmes outputting sound simultaneously, waggled the joystick and Metro stopped outputting sound.

Any ideas? I'm away from Friday a.m. to Monday, but would appreciate some feedback then. This is my current set-up:

Mac DP G4 450mhz, 1.256 Gb RAM, OS X.3 (Panther);
Emagic a6|2m USB/MIDI/audio interface, with audio input from an ART preamp and a Mackie 1202 mixer; USB input from the Alesis Photon 25; USB In/Out from/to the Mac; audio output to the Mackie;
Alesis Photon 25.

PS Would it make any difference, if I connected the Alesis to the interface, via MIDI rather than USB? I'd need to power it separately, of course.

[Jerm]

waggled the joystick and Metro stopped outputting sound.

What MIDI Events are the joystick supposed to be sending? Where is the MIDI being routed?

Alesis says "X/Y Joystick to control Pitch Bend/Modulation or other parameters" sounds like it is some how being routed to MIDI volume.

If you record the sequence and then play it back, does the sound still cut out? If yes, review what is in the event editor.

[Scoot]

waggled the joystick and Metro stopped outputting sound.

Alesis says "X/Y Joystick to control Pitch Bend/Modulation or other parameters" sounds like it is some how being routed to MIDI volume.

If you record the sequence and then play it back, does the sound still cut out? If yes, review what is in the event editor.

Not that I've got a keyboard joystick but if it was set probably, would the middle position be 64 and it would bend up and down the scale?

If it were cutting out completely would it be bringing up a mute rather than a volume value........cause you'd expect it to come back up?

[Adrian Delso]

Left/Right varies Pitch, Up is a more or less rapid vibrato (think Osmonds' "Crazy Horses").
I'll check the Events, to see if a Mute CC has been sent.
Should the "M" (as in "R", "M", "S") not be highlighted, if so?

Obviously Logic responds slightly differently to these messages.

At the risk of getting out of my depth, is there a list of MIDI messages, CC nos. or whatever, to which MetroLX responds?
Is it in the manual?
I note in the comparison list of features, that all three versions have:
Favorite Controllers - Specify favorite MIDI control numbers for menus.

Could I, for example, get Metro to respond to Cubase commands?

[Jerm]

Adrian,

I think you are a bit confused here. You must make a distinction between CC's and remote control events. While Metro supports remote control events, Metro LX does not. MIDI CC's are continuous controllers. Metro does not respond to these but rather passes them through to the destination synth. What the destination synth does is implementation dependent. Standard controllers are:

1=modulation
7=volume
10=pan
etc.

[Adrian Delso]

Does this mean I can't use my MIDI controller to send, e.g. Start/Stop/Record, select, etc. to MetroLX? In other words, the Photon will only send messages to the software synth (see below)?

I don't use a hardware synth or any kind of external MIDI device. It's either DLS, Apple effects or VSamp - all software. My MIDI controller goes into a USB on my Emagic interface and from there into the Mac and Metro. The resultant noises come back out of the Emagic into my mixer and monitoring setup.

(Oh, and I am more than a bit confused!)

[Jerm]

Does this mean I can't use my MIDI controller to send, e.g. Start/Stop/Record, select, etc. to MetroLX? In other words, the Photon will only send messages to the software synth (see below)?

Metro, the full version, supports remote control of the transport functions. You will need to use the Macintosh keyboard for Metro LX.